


Persephone's Seeds

by NightsMistress



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen, contains spoilers for both series, one sided Nico/Percy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Children of Hades are able to use pomegranate seeds, but their use come at a cost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Persephone's Seeds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucida/gifts).



Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Nico is desperate beyond measure. Tartarus was never meant to be seen by human eyes, and the children of Hades are not quite human enough. He can see Tartarus, the true Tartarus, and the sight sets him to sobbing as he stumbles from one hiding place to the next. This is no time for heroics, he knows, and he isn’t at all confident of his ability to survive, let alone with his sanity intact.

When Gaia’s forces discover him, he tries to put up a fight. He stands upright, his sword pointed into Tartarus’ skin as he uses it as a crutch, and he tells them that he is the son of Hades and they’ll have to kill him. They don’t, of course. He swings his sword in wild, desperate arcs because here in Tartarus, his other abilities are almost useless, and for a few minutes he’s holding his own. Then they stop toying with him, and he’s left sprawling on the ground. His head spins and he closes his eyes against the vertigo.

He opens his eyes to a new and disorientating world. It takes him a long, queasy moment to realize that he is slung over a monster’s shoulder and he kicks weakly against the monster’s chest. He’s not sure what this would accomplish, and judging by the rumbling that he can feel, the monster finds his attempts utterly hilarious. Nico spares a moment to call him every single filthy Greek curse he can think of, along with a few Latin ones for good measure, before closing his eyes and hoping to pass out again.

He doesn’t, unfortunately, which means he gets to hear their plans. He’s bait for Percy Jackson and his group of heroes, it seems. Nico is not as sure as they are that Percy will come for him, a realization that hurts him inexplicably because he doesn’t want Percy to come for him. He wants Percy to never see him again, because for all the bittersweet pain that seeing Percy causes Nico, seeing Nico again means that Percy has just walked into a trap. Normally Percy can escape traps, but Nico is too sick and dizzy to think of how Percy can escape this one. Being in Tartarus is hell, and moreso if you’re a child of Hades. _Thanks Dad,_ Nico thinks. _I would have preferred a useful gift here, like the power to command them._

When he opens his eyes again, he’s not in Tartarus, and he can’t help moaning in relief. It’s nice that that doesn’t hurt. Breathing doesn’t hurt, not in the same way, and it takes him a minute to realize that the reason why he is sitting up is because he is trapped inside an urn. It takes him a precious minute to realize this, and that the reason why he feels dull and sleepy is because the urn is sealed.

He barks a laugh at this, because what are the odds of suffocating in an urn waiting for Percy Jackson to hopefully save him. His trip to Tartarus means that he’s too weak to travel by shadows. He doesn’t even want to try, in case he passes out and dies. 

There is one thing he can do. Children of Hades can trigger a death trance by swallowing pomegranate seeds and submitting to Persephone. It’s not something that he would normally consider on the grounds that Persephone hates him, but then again if he dies Persephone would have no one to hate. That has to be worth the price that the gods’ gifts carry.

It’s on this thought that he swallows a seed and scratches a line on the wall of the urn.

 _First day,_ he thinks sleepily.

He’s smaller, still with baby fat dimpling his hands, calling for his mother to come make things better. A ghost has appeared with an arm missing, dressed in muddy fatigues. He’s from the trenches, and Nico does not want to hear what he has to say.

He’s always had a sensitivity to death, and ghosts are drawn to him. In the time that he lives, where people die every day with dreams unfulfilled, it’s not a talent that serves him well.

“Shh,” Bianca says, covering his mouth. “Mama’s sleeping.”

“But they’re _here_ ,” Nico says. He clings to her arm, taking some small comfort that she is as real and solid as he is.

“I know,” Bianca whispers. She’s afraid too, her eyes darting from side to side as if she can pretend the shade isn’t there pleading with them to pass a message to his sweetheart. “I see them too, but you mustn’t say anything. We’ll draw attention.”

“I won’t,” Nico says. “Only to you.”

 _I don’t understand,_ Nico thinks as he opens his eyes. His hand is as it always was, thin but with strong bones that suggest he’ll be tall when he’s older. Demigod dreams are important, but he doesn’t understand how his dreams of the past matter. He swallows another seed and draws a second mark on the wall.

He’s older now, the grief from Bianca’s death still painfully raw, and he’s driven now by the need to be powerful. He had relied on Percy Jackson to protect Bianca, and she died far away from him. He can’t turn back time, that’s only within Kronos’ power and Nico isn’t grief-stricken enough to think that an alliance with Kronos is his only option. He is the child of Hades, Lord of the Underworld, and that means if he can learn to use his power over the dead, he can conjure Bianca’s spirit up and walk her back to the realm of the living.

His father won’t teach him how to use his powers. In fact, Nico barely sees his father, and suspects that he thinks the wrong child died. Instead, any knowledge Nico has about his abilities is stolen from his father’s library, slipping into shadows when he thinks he might be caught. Once or twice his father looks around the room in such a way that Nico is certain that his father can see him, but Hades never says anything. Perhaps it’s training, but for what Nico isn’t sure.

From what he’s read, he could do more than hide in the shadows. A shadow is a shadow anywhere, and for a child of Hades, he could travel from one shadow into another regardless of where it is, given enough practice. The idea is tempting. If he could go from one place to another, bringing others with him, he could bring an army to aid Percy right at the last moment.

But he is no hero. Heroes have bright flashing swords that spark hope into those that follow them. Nico has a black sword, black moods, and kills the grass he walks on when he’s upset. He is no hero, and instead he focuses his attention on summoning a ghost that can help him.

He tries to summon his mother or his sister. It doesn’t work. Neither of them answer him when he calls, and he doesn’t understand why. It must be because he isn’t skilled enough yet, so he practices some more, learning from the dead. Most times they shriek to see him, but Nico is used to being afraid. The living already look on him with fear, why not the dead as well? If they’re afraid they won’t turn on him. If he must be alone, and it seems that he must until he is powerful enough to bring Bianca and his mother back, then he will not be helpless.

 _Oh, I don’t want to see anymore,_ Nico thinks when he opens his eyes. The past hurts, and Nico has a lot of past to hurt him. But he also doesn’t want to die, and he thinks Percy must be close, so he swallows another seed.

Elysium isn’t for him, he knows. He can travel there, of course, but he doesn’t belong there because Nico di Angelo doesn’t belong _anywhere_. He doesn’t intend to stay though. Not this time. No living person understood the pull that death had on him, the way that the dead and the earth responded to his will in the way that no living human ever did. He was no hero, not like Jason or Percy, who drew people to follow them like moths to a flame. Bianca would have understood if she had lived. Nico meant to fix that, if he could find the way.

Any living child of Hades could walk through the Underworld if they had the will and the power to do it. Nico had both in spades. What he didn’t have was a way to slip past Thanatos with Bianca after he had rescued her. Then, that didn’t matter, because Thanatos disappeared, leaving the Doors of Death untended. 

He wanders the fields of Elysium, all the shades not noticing him as they are caught in their own idyll, and he cannot see Bianca. Children of Hades are always aware of the Underworld, and if she was here, she would know that he was here. She would _know_ , and he would know. That kind of knowledge ripples across the Underworld for those sensitive enough to see it.

Which meant that she wasn’t there anymore. She had gone, and he’d never be able to tell her that he didn’t need her to explain what being a cupbearer meant because he knew now. He’d never be able to tell her that he doesn’t love Percy anymore, not really, because he couldn’t love someone who got her killed and the twisting in his chest whenever Percy is in danger is just normal anxiety. He couldn’t tell her that together they could create a space for their demigod siblings to live.

She was gone and it was all his father’s fault for not telling him that she chose to be reincarnated.

He is angry, sick with the fury of it, and it’s surprising that he noticed the other ripple at all. Had he been a little more angry, he might not have noticed. But there is another Hades child here, in Asphodel. A girl, who died doing something evil, but who was innocent of any wrong-doing. A sister. Not Bianca, but she could replace her.

 _She’ll do,_ Nico decides, and goes to pull her out. 

In a sleepy half-daze, in the hours before he needs to take another seed to live, Nico understands. The seeds of Persephone are bitter for the children of Hades, because Persephone wept when she understood what eating them had done. They are sorrow, and the children of Hades bring her more sorrow.

But he must live, so he perseveres.


End file.
